BRISTOL, Tenn. — Carl Long, who hasn’t raced in Sprint Cup since earning one of NASCAR’s harshest penalties in 2009, wishes he could be like Denny Hamlin and have his fine deducted from his race winnings.

Unfortunately for Long, there are few races where he would be guaranteed to earn $200,000 for winning a race.

Long was fined a record $200,000 in May 2009 for having an engine that was 0.17 cubic inches over the regulation size during practice for the Sprint Showdown at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Only the Daytona 500 has a purse where the last-place finisher could earn that much money, and that would be the bulk of the winnings. So it’s not feasible for Long to pursue the same avenue as Hamlin, who recently refused to pay his $25,000 fine and is forcing NASCAR to garnish his winnings.

Long’s crew chief was assessed the fine, but since it wasn’t paid, NASCAR put the burden on the team owner (Long’s wife) and then eventually on Long himself since the team no longer attempted to race.

Transferring the fine to Long is within NASCAR rules, which allow for the deduction of fines from the purse of a driver or team owner. The rule would keep a team from firing a crew chief in hopes of not paying the fine.

Before his team shut down, Long said NASCAR offered to allow him to pay somewhere between $12,000-$16,000 a race to enter an event, pushing the entry fee to close to $25,000 a race.

He said the fine soured his sponsor on the sport and possibly ended his Cup driving career after 23 starts in the series.

Long still wants to race in Cup — he can race and work in the Nationwide Series but has been banned from the Cup garage since the start of 2012 when he was asked to leave the Cup area at Daytona — and still talks to potential sponsors about possibly paying the fine.

“The first thing that I tell them is look, ‘You give me a million and a half dollars, two million dollars to run the Nationwide Series and run a couple of Cup races, and the first thing we’ll do is we’ll take $200,000, make a press release, give the NASCAR Foundation a $200,000 check and you’ll make all the sports pages across the United States,’” Long said Friday.

“They’re the good guys that clean the slate and let me go race.”

Fans who sent money for him to pay his fine contributed nearly $20,000, which Long offered to return or use to cover expenses for the Showdown race.

Long said he’ll clear about $35,000 from working as a mechanic and driver in the Nationwide Series this year. He is working at the shop, as a part-time crew chief and hauler driver for Rick Ware Racing. Occasionally, he’ll drive, possibly even next week at Auto Club Speedway.

“I can’t offer myself to a Cup team to make more money because I can’t go with them to the racetrack,” Long said.

Long said that people see him in the Nationwide garage and think he’s paid the fine or that it’s been waived.

“People keep seeing me here and they’re like, ‘Did NASCAR just drop it and wipe it under (the rug?)’” Long said.

“They’ve been pretty strong about their (feeling) that, ‘You owe us money.’”